Friday, November 11, 2016

There are many things that will happen
here in the near future, but for now, we're just going to explore
with Zidane. This is fine, of course, as there's quite a lot to see
and do before we get on with the actual plot. I spent an hour just
looking around in all three districts of the city.

That's probably the best place to
start. The actual city portion of Lindblum is divided into three
districts: the Business District, where the majority, if not all, of
the services are located, including the Inn; the Theater District,
where Tantalus has its headquarters, among other things; and the
Industrial District, where that pub Zidane likes is. All three
districts and the castle proper are connected by a system of flying
vehicles called air cabs.

Quite a lot of what I was doing this
outing took place in the Business District. There are many shops
there, most notably the Synthesis Shop, run by a father and son team,
where the father's name is Torres, and I can never remember the son's
name. The first of a couple Active Time Events happens when Zidane
steps out of the Inn. Steiner's running around the middle section of
the Business District, lost without a map. After asking a female red
mage for directions and striking out, our knight in rusty armor talks
to a lady at a cart who is selling gyshal pickles, a local delicacy.
Turns out they're the sort of thing that tend to taste better the
worse they smell. Steiner buys one and sucks it down in one bite,
only to get knocked on his ass by how strong the flavor is. Sounds
like my kind of thing.

When Zidane gets there, Steiner is
gone, but the NPCs are there. I think we might have to pay the
pickle lady if we talk to her, but I didn't get that done this time.
I did, however, visit the armory, the items shop, and the Synth Shop
to stock up on a few things. The armory did have a few things for
everybody, including Freya and another character we don't have yet.
I'll get to Quina when we get to where he/she actually lives. The
Synth Shop lets us combine items to form usually upgraded things. I
did have the weapons needed to make a new dagger or sword for Zidane
called the Butterfly Sword. It'll be awhile before I equip it,
though, since he still has a few things to learn from the mythril
knife I've got on him now.

There's also a church there said to be
founded by Cid the First, who also founded the nation of Lindblum as
a whole, as well. This church gets a good deal more use than the one
in Legend of Mana's Domina. The folks in Lindblum's church explain
the history of all this to us.

When Zidane goes to get on the Air Cab
the first time, there's a mandatory Active Time Event where Vivi goes
to the item shop and finds something called a Kupo Nut that the nice
lady at the counter gives him on the house before foolishly telling
him that the Festival of the Hunt thing that Freya was mentioning
before had “animals”, and that was all Vivi needed to hear. The
little Black Mage goes running off, apparently thinking he's going to
get in on the festival so he can play with the animals, not realizing
that they're more of the monsters from the random battles.

The next place I usually go is the
Theater District, where Tantalus has its headquarters. The big deal
going on here right now is that a popular actor named Lowell has to
deal with his fan club. There's some other guy that's meant to be
kind of a body double for the dude who comes out to distract the
squeeing fangirls who block the route he needs to escape. Then the
man himself comes out in a lazy moogle suit that he can barely see
out of. The fangirls don't realize who it is, but Zidane knows,
being a bit of an actor himself. Lowell runs off before Zidane can
out him. There's an artist who's friends with Lowell and lets him
hide in his studio. If you follow Lowell there, Zidane can hork his
moogle suit for that little girl in Alexandria whose grandmother was
making fancy cloths for.

When Zidane visits the troupe's
headquarters, he notes that nobody's been there in awhile, which
makes sense, as all the other members of Tantalus are still trying to
get back from Evil Forest in Alexandria right now, as seen in an
Active Time Event. Some kids named Bunce and Lani show up, claiming
they're members of the gang now because they've found treasure. This
triggers another mandatory Active Time Event showing that Dagger's
getting a little bored, as she's cooped up in the castle per Cid's
orders.

Lastly is the Industrial District.
About the only things going on here are the pub I mentioned earlier,
where there's really not much happening at the moment, and another
Active Time Event featuring Steiner. This time, our silly knight is
lost in the Industrial District near the docks. An older fellow
tells him he's not a very good soldier if he's this prone to getting
lost and then explains where they are and that the big airship in the
largest berth there is the Hilda Garde 2, that Regent Cid is working
on to replace the prototype that Hilda jacked when she turned him
into the bug.

Once I was done in the Industrial
District, I went back to save at the Inn in the Business District
because I think I've got enough to cover for now. I think I've got
everything in more or less the right order here, but I'm not entirely
sure. The last half hour or so I was playing, I was enjoying the
game too much to pay the sort of attention I should have been. I
know there was an ATE that showed Baku saying that maybe they should
leave their friend Blank petrified with the rest of Evil Forest
because they were better off with the forest being out of commission.
Thing is, Baku comes across as saying it because he's got something
against Blank. I bring it up here at the end, because that's about
the point I got too much into the game for doing this right.

Anyway, from here, we'll go on to more
stuff in the castle and the Festival of the Hunt, where Freya joins
the party for real. See you soon folks, and until then, stay safe,
keep gaming, have fun, and DFTBA!